This is an older bottle design. They have a much nicer bottle now. But Kroger’s Chocolate 1% Lowfat Milk is not a chocolate milk I would NOT recommend. I picked it up because I had heart burn and I was on the run. It was the only small bottle of milk I could find. While it helped the heart burn it was not that tasty. I never had chocolate milk that tasted like chocolate flavored chalk before. It is ‘ultra’ pasteurized. I have to wonder what makes it ultra instead of regular. Maybe that is part of what screwed up the taste.

Having to slam on my breaks (three times) on the drive to work because people are driving crazy.

Me before 10:00 am.

People talking in loud and energetic voices at 7:30 am. I always enjoyed my quiet mornings before most of the staff got to work. Only they have hired a very very very loud person for my unit who has my same start time. I miss my calm, quiet, start to the workday. Without it, it puts me on the wrong foot for the rest of the day.

Not being able to hear the callers with my headset cranked up because the loudest person now sits behind me.

Having tons of work but three of my co-workers spend half of the day in each others cubes chatting.

Nosy people trying to get into my business while I’m trying to get work done, slowing me down and keeping me from concentrating.

Callers who don’t listen. I asked for the city, not the road. I asked for the DL, not the state. I asked for the year, not the make. I asked for my vehicle not your driver. Basically, callers who answer my questions with completely different information. Are they even listening to the questions?

Agents who call in a claim, ‘to get it started’, when they actually don’t have ANY of the info yet.

People who ask me how I am after I ask how I can help them. That is not an appropriate response to my question.

People who assume I just asked them how they are when I never did. Clearly, they didn’t actually hear anything I had just said to them.

Every time work provides ‘treats’ to the staff, it is cake and cookies, despite the aggressive ‘wellness’ program they have going on. Wouldn’t fruit and veggies be better? Talk about mixed messages.

Callers that are clearly insane.

The company using the same three horrible restaurants to cater special lunches. The only saving grace is that the horrible Italian place does make amazing dinner rolls. But I can only have one.

Everyone thinking that I like chocolate because ‘everyone’ likes chocolate even though I’ve spent years saying I’m not overly fond of it.

Constant headaches because the light levels in this office are insanely bright and the place is always too hot. (Although everyone else thinks it is cold. I think they are nuts about that too.)

Hashtags. I don’t mind tags. I detest hashtags. (I admit, I may be sinking to the level of irrationality.)

Photo for a Halloween hat. She may look witchy but I have no proof she is bitchy and can’t make a case for the words being equal.

Callers who won’t let me do anything to help them but won’t get off the phone until I solve their problems.

Books that have plot points that are never addressed by the end of the book. Basically, every major motivating plot point in the novel I finished at lunch today.

People who use the word witch to substitute bitch. I know enough witches who are not bitches to really resent that usage and find it personally offensive.

You know, I just want to boycott the rest of the week and read a few books, watch a ton of Netflix and do some cross-stitching.

A few weeks back, The Bottom Line was all about the Banana Split. It was invented back in 1904, 1906 and 1907. Back when news didn’t travel around as fast, you could get these independent instances of unrelated invention and discovery. It wouldn’t happen now, it would get spread as far and as fast as the internet could take it.

The 1904 has been confirmed as the earliest know banana split. It was created by David Evans Strickler, a 23-year-old apprentice pharmacist. The treat did start to spread as he shared it at professional conventions for pharmacists.

In 1906, a Boston ice cream entrepreneur came up with the idea as well. His didn’t work out so well at first. He didn’t peal the banana before splitting it. So people were trying to scrape banana out of the peal. It fared better with men than with women. Once he started to peal the banana first, it picked up with the women.

In 1907, a restaurant owner, Ernest Hazard, in yet another city and state ( Willmington, OH) was trying to come up with a desert to get the college students to come in more during the slower winter spell. He held a contest but the employees didn’t come up with anything he liked. So he came up with the banana split. They hold a festival every summer to honor this even. Despite the fact it was winter when it happened. I’m thinking frozen treats just go over better in the hot summer months.

Today, The Bottom Line was all about ice cream again. What I find somewhat amazing is that, once again, vanilla tops the chart as the number one favorite flavor. If you based it on books, TV, movies, or people in general, it always seems like people want chocolate. Chocolate comes in at second place, Strawberry is third, and Mint Chocolate Chip is fourth. (that one is my favorite)

I wonder if there is a difference in Vanilla, Vanilla Bean, and French Vanilla. I go through phases of each. I suspect one reason this flavor comes out on top so often is that is has a simple, clean, crisp taste that is good on its own and is perfect for a base for other toppings. Chocolate can hide or overwhelm some flavors of toppings and strawberry doesn’t taste good with all flavors.

Personally, I would rather have sorbet. I love the stuff. Or soft-serve frozen yogurt, but you can’t find that much anymore. For a while you could find a low-carb ice-cream. That stuff was amazing. It reminded why I used to like ice cream. Today, they take too much fat out of it and replace it with too much sugar. It isn’t the same ice cream as when I was little. I just don’t usually feel like having ice cream anymore. It isn’t at all satisfying. Sorbet I can enjoy. Frozen yogurt I can enjoy, especially Red Mango; the store not the flavor. My favorite flavor there is summer melon, covered in strawberry and kiwi slices.

It’s still going to be hot for a while. Maybe after payday, I’ll go to the only Red Mango shop that has the Summer Melon and treat myself to a dish of it.

Hunger Games, the book. about 374 pages. About 4 hours. Maybe 4 hours and 15 minutes. Easy. Fast. I remember how all these people said they spend one entire day reading it. It just isn’t that long and complex. The writing is very straight forward and simple. Events are very fast paced. You have no idea that in reality, it covers several weeks.

Some channel was playing the Mummy movie remakes over the weekend. I always felt sorry for the Mummy. Okay, they did find a really good looking actor to play him, so that helped make him a bit sympathetic. But it was really that all he did was done out of love. It wasn’t even a selfish love. Because he so totally loved her that he would do ANYTHING for her, even if it was of questionable ethics. But she wasn’t worth it. When push came to shove, she was more concerned about saving herself than helping the one that loved her so much that he gave everything of himself for her. In the end, he realizes that his great love and great sacrifice was thrown back into his face and he let’s go of the person trying to save him and takes death in the realization of what he had done for someone who was so selfish.

My birthday was yesterday and I kinda wish that I had chosen to take my floating holiday today. I don’t feel like much today. It’s too pretty out. It would have been a great day to go to the gardens and have a picnic someplace. But I decided to save it and go to work instead. I have a free birthday meal at Red Robin but I don’t feel like it yet. I better before the end of the month.

I want noodles for dinner but I don’t want to go out of my way to the Vietnamese place. I might go down to Pana88, a new pan-asian place close to work, and get their giant bowl of ramen noodles to take for dinner when I run off to my gaming group tonight. Or maybe I’ll just stay there and eat. That way I don’t have to try to kill as much time after work.

My new meds are making me sleepy. I’m trying to get used to them. So I may be very sleepy at the game tonight. My warrior may be a little un-energetic. I need energy. The doctor told me to take them before bed. But one is a twice daily, so I have to take it once in the morning as well.

My supervisor got back from her week vacation. She brought back a bag of my kryptonite for each of us. Salt Water Taffy. I live this stuff. I have a fair amount of the black ones. I love the black licorice taffy. That and Banana are probably my favorite. I got very little chocolate taffy. I wanted more only for the purpose of trading it for more of the black licorice.

I brought almonds for a tasty and healthy snack. They are only healthy if I eat the right amount. I have to make sure I stop. I love nuts. Except walnuts. I hate walnuts. The Squirrels can have them. Foamy can take over the world and keep the walnuts. I like foamy. Illwill press is great stuff. Lovley cartoons, if you are slightly misanthropic. I am, so I apreciate them.

I’m very upset with the judge in Utah that ordered a girl’s hair to be chopped off in the courtroom as an option to lowering her community service. When I was 6, my mom had my aunt cut my hair short. It so traumatized me that I couldn’t get my hair cut short for years. Even with a trip, I would literally freak out at seeing the hair falling from my head. So maybe the child was traumatized. But small kids cut each other’s hair all the time. I don’t know a parent that hasn’t come into the room one day to find the kids with the scizzors either cutting their own hair or a siblings hair.

Sure is was wrong for a couple of young teens to cut a toddlers pony tail off. But NO judge should ever have the right to order a parent to chop of a kid’s hair in the court room. That goes way beyond reasonable autority for a judge. On top of it, he allowed the other older girl involved to be taken to a salon to have her hair professionally cut and returned to the courtroom to determine if it was acceptable to him or not.

This gives us another case where cutting another persons hair with malicious intent is an assault. But punishing an assault with an assault is not justice. It’s revenge. And judges are suppose to be above revenge.

As for Tennessee’s ‘no holding hands’ law, they over look a common theme in areas with high pregnancy rates. Boredom. Many kids are complaining of boredom. They are becoming sexually active because it is something to do. Start creating more diverse activities and activity centers for teens, not kids, not adults, not ‘family friendly’ but specifically for teens and you would be amazed at the reduction in teen pregnancy. Or maybe not amazed because it won’t stop all of them, but it will give them something else to go than having sex because there is nothing else interesting to do.

When you look at chocolate, do you want the shiny, reflective chocolate or the dull, matte chocolate? If you pick the first you are getting a lot of wax. If you pick the second you are getting more chocolate.

The wax makes it all pretty and shiny so it sells better. But it means less chocolate is in the mix. It stretches the chocolate out and the confectioner can get more candy out of the same amount of chocolate. It makes more product and increases sales and you can see why confectioners would go that route.

So take a good hard look at the chocolate shop when next you buy it from a chocolatier. What you really want to find is dull looking chocolate. If you are brave enough ask them how much wax they put in their chocolate.

The best chocolate I ever had was from Trader Joe’s. It was dull, matte, high cocoa percentage with chili pepper in it. It was a South American chocolate. It was amazing. I need to see if I can go find more of it.

In grade school I read every book on Sitting Bull I could get my hands on. In Jr High I read every book I could find on Sitting Bull written for adult readers. I loved Sitting Bull and I truly believe he is a Hero. Especially if you take a good hard look at Custer’s history and the fact he was actually on punishment duty and was not supposed to be leading any men at all at the time.

It is ironic that Sitting Bull has been presented to school children as a great man for many years. All the sudden, because Obama has presented him as a hero to his children, people are now going to denegrate him? This is the apex of stupidity on the part of American people to suddenly decide someone is evil only because someone else they don’t like happens to value his role in history.

If Omaha likes chocolate milkshakes, are they all going to start villifying chocolate milkshakes and say that anyone who dislikes Obama must not drink them anymore?